One of the biggest air raids of World War I occurs on this day in 1915, when 34 planes from the British Naval Wing attack the German-occupied coastal towns of Blankenberghe, Ostend and Zeebrugge in Belgium.

The attacks, led by British Wing Commander C.R. Samson, targeted the railway stations in Ostend and Blankenberghe as well as railway lines across the coast that were being used by the occupying military forces from Germany. The town of Zeebrugge, which was being used by the Germans as a base of operations for their deadly submarine warfare and from which they planned a blockade of the Belgian coast, was also a major target of the attack.

The unprecedented raid was extraordinarily successful, causing massive damage to the occupying military force. Despite coming under heavy ground fire from German anti-aircraft guns, not a single Allied plane was shot down and no Allied lives were lost.

On this day in 1917, the Austrian submarine U-35 bombs and sinks the American schooner Lyman M. Law in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Cagliari, Sardinia. The Lyman M. Law, captained by S.W. McDonough, had embarked on its final journey from Stockton, Maine, with a crew of 10 on January 6, 1917, carrying a cargo of 60,000 bundles of lemon-box staves.

The schooner was traveling across the Atlantic bound for Palermo, Italy, when it was captured on the morning of February 12. The Austrians ordered the crew of eight Americans and two British sailors off the schooner before a bomb was detonated, setting fire to the 1,300-ton wooden vessel prior to its sinking. The crew was uninjured and transported to the coastal town of Cagliari, where they were released.

On February 26, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson referred to the unprovoked sinking of the Lyman M. Law and the February 3, 1917, sinking of the American steamship Housatonic by the German submarine U-53, in his request for Congressional authorization to arm U.S. merchant ships so that they could defend themselves against possible German attacks. In his address, Wilson insisted repeatedly that the American people did not desire war, but merely sought to “defend our commerce and the lives of our people in the midst of the present trying circumstances.” Less than two months later, however, angered by continued German submarine aggression against American interests at sea, Wilson would go before Congress again, this time to deliver his message of war. The U.S. would formally enter World War I on April 6, 1917.

Tuesday, 12th February, 1918
We are in local support line having some cover on Wall Farm and Omega trench. Wall Farm was a pill box and a most useful cover when under shell fire. Twenty men or more could easily take cover here. It was in Wall Farm on one very black night that I slipped into a trench full of water waist deep. Thinking it was a big shell hole I plunged to regain the other side but as it turned out to be a piece of straight trench with each frog type jump I only fell in more water until like a drenched bird I scrambled to land and made the best of a drying job in Wall Farm which gave protection from the cold outside.

The task of besieging Verdun fell to the German Fifth Army under Crown Prince Wilhelm. He planned to assault the town from both side of the surrounding Meuse River, a plan vetoed by Falkenhayn, who, cautious by nature, feared heavy losses, ordered the attack to be confined to the east bank of the river.

Originally scheduled to start on 12 February the offensive was postponed to 21 February on account of poor weather, preceded by a 21 hour preliminary bombardment.

Today is the 93rd anniversary of the start of construction on the Lincoln Memorial, a neoclassical monument to President Abraham Lincoln that stands on the extended axis of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Modeled after Greece's Parthenon, the Abraham Lincoln Memorial resembles a Doric temple and contains both a large, seated sculpture of President Lincoln and inscriptions from two of his best-known speeches.

Well, here goes for another empty letter: my bicycle is here: very many thanks for getting it out so quickly: I wish the W.O. would send out maps equally promptly. You ask about the other people in the Office: well Newcombe and Woolley you have heard of. There is Hough ex-consul at Jaffa... pleasant and nothing more: there is Lloyd, an M.P. (I should think probably Conservative, but you never know) who is a director of a bank, and used to be Attaché at Constantinople. He is Welsh, but sorry for it: small, dark, very amusing... speaks Turkish well, and French, German and Italian: some Spanish, Arabic and Hindustani... also Russian. He is quite pleasant, but exceedingly noisy.

The German Tenth Army attack began on 8 February. By 10 February it had advanced twenty five miles and by 12 February close to fifty. It had achieved most of its objectives. Having started off faced to the east, it was now facing south, with three of the four Russian corps to its south. The Russian III corps had managed to escape to the east, towards the fortresses of Kovno and Olita on the Niemen River.

Lord C. BERESFORD asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will inform the House why the firing practices carried out when His Majesty's Ship "Empress of India" was used as a target were conducted in deep water; and if he will state the number and class of guns that were on board the ship at the time she was sunk in the Channel?

Mr. CHURCHILL Perhaps I may take advantage of the question to give a full answer. The place and conditions of the "Empress of India" firing were selected by the Commander-in-Chief of the Home 334 Fleet in consultation with the naval members of the Board of Admiralty. I accept full Parliamentary responsibility for approving the course proposed. The object of the firing was not, as the Noble Lord appears to suppose, to ascertain the effect of shell fire on the structure of the target vessel, the soft armour and antiquated construction of which would have afforded no useful information. The object was primarily to give the officers and men of the Fleet experience in firing at a ship under conditions approximating as nearly as possible to those of war, and in these circumstances to test and correct the methods of controlling fire and fire tactics. Every effort was made to render the target unsinkable; but I was informed that it was advisable to anchor her in deep water so that in the event of her sinking she would not become a danger to navigation. All fittings and moveables of value were stripped from the ship. The guns on board, four 13.5 inch and ten 6 inch of very early patterns, would not have repaid for the expense of removal. I shall be very ready if desired to discuss fully the general policy of so costly an experiment when the Estimates are being debated. For the present it is sufficient to observe that other leading maritime countries, especially France, Germany, and the United States, have found it necessary in late years to employ old war vessels as targets under conditions which have in many cases led to their total loss, and considerable sums of money have, in addition, been provided for the experiments. We ourselves have periodically adopted a long succession of similar measures entailing, in the present century, the destruction, among others, of the following vessels: "Belleisle," "Scorpion," "Landrail," "Hero," "Edinburgh," and "Empress of India." In October last the Hussian battleship, "Chosma," a vessel of somewhat larger displacement and of approximate value to that of the "Empress of India," was fired at and sunk by a division of the Black Sea Fleet under similar conditions, and presumably for similar purposes as those of the "Empress of India" firings. The information derived by such experiments is considered by the responsible Naval authorities of this country fully to justify the expense involved, and is indispensable to the progress of British naval science and the efficiency of the Fleet. In these circumstances it would have been a very serious step for a Minister to over-rule his professional advisers, and on purely financial 335 grounds to deprive the Navy of experience and information for which other countries, to whom sea power is of less consequence, have shown themselves ready to pay.

Lord C. BERESFORD Was the real object of firing at the "Empress of India" to see how soon she could be sunk in deep water?

Mr. CHURCHILL I have given the Noble Lord an answer to his question in the full reply which I have read.

Mr. WATT Is it the case that the market value of this vessel was Ł50,000?

1. Fundamental. Naval superiority recognized as essential to Great Britain. Present German naval program and expenditure not to be increased, but if possible retarded and reduced.

2. England sincerely desires not to interfere with German Colonial expansion. To give effect to this she is prepared forthwith to discuss whatever the German aspirations in that direction may be. England will be glad to know that there is a field or special points where she can help Germany.

3. Proposals for reciprocal assurances debarring either power from joining in aggressive designs or combinations against the other would be welcome.

Hafız Hakkı Paşa, commander of the Third Army, died of typhus on 12 February 1915 and was replaced by Brigadier General Mahmut Kamil Paşa. The army had been completely devastated after the disastrous winter campaign and it was Mahmut Kamil’s task to put the army in order. Reinforcements were coming from the First and Second Armies and by March 1915, X and XI Corps could be deployed again, although they were no stronger than a division. A new IX Corps was established with the remaining artillery and support units and was appointed a defensive position.

The strategic situation was stable. The Russians were not advancing deeper into the Anatolian mainland. They stayed at their pre-war border in the north while keeping the Turkish towns of Eleşkirt, Ağrı and Doğubeyazıt in the south. This stability gave the Turkish Third Army the opportunity to recover, reorganize and position itself on new defensive lines. However, there were simply not enough forces to secure the whole East Anatolian region.

When the weather conditions became milder, the new Russian offensive began.

Born on 2 April 1891 in Slamannan, Samuel Frickleton came from a large Scottish coalmining family. He was one of 11 children of Elizabeth and Samuel Freckleton (their surname was originally spelt with an ‘e’), who had both been born in Lanarkshire in the 1850s. By 1911 seven Frickleton boys were working in the mines alongside their father.

Samuel’s elder brother William emigrated to New Zealand in February 1912 to work in the Blackball mine, near Greymouth. He evidently sent back positive accounts of the job prospects. When Samuel senior died soon afterwards, the four younger boys and their mother set off for a new life in New Zealand. By the middle of 1913 five Frickleton brothers (William, Samuel, James, Thomas and Herbert) were working at Blackball. A close-knit and unruly family, keen on boxing, they are remembered in Blackball as the ‘Fighting Frickletons’.

All five Frickleton brothers volunteered to serve with the New Zealand army during the First World War. William, James and Samuel enlisted together in the Canterbury battalion on 12 February 1915, and sailed for Egypt as part of the 5th Reinforcements. Soon after arrival Samuel became seriously ill from a lung infection, diagnosed as tuberculosis. He was sent home and discharged as medically unfit in November 1915. After recuperating at a sanatorium near Dunedin he re-enlisted in April 1916, and was sent to France with the 3rd Battalion of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade.

Lance Corporal Samuel Frickleton took part in the attack on Messines, Belgium, on 7 June 1917. When his unit was pinned down by heavy machine-gun fire, he singlehandedly attacked two machine-gun posts, killing their crews. He was wounded in the hip and later gassed. For these acts of extreme gallantry, he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

James Connolly: "What Is A Free Nation?"From Workers’ Republic, 12 February 1916.

We are moved to ask this question because of the extraordinary confusion of thought upon the subject which prevails in this country, due principally to the pernicious and misleading newspaper garbage upon which the Irish public has been fed for the past twenty-five years.

Our Irish daily newspapers have done all that human agencies could do to confuse the public mind upon the question of what the essentials of a free nation are, what a free nation must be, and what a nation cannot submit to lose without losing its title to be free.

It is because of this extraordinary newspaper-created ignorance that we find so many people enlisting in the British army under the belief that Ireland has at long last attained to the status of a free nation, and that therefore the relations between Ireland and England have at last been placed upon the satisfactory basis of freedom. Ireland and England, they have been told, are now sister nations, joined in the bond of Empire, but each enjoying equal liberties – the equal liberties of nations equally free. How many recruits this idea sent into the British army in the first flush of the war it would be difficult to estimate, but they were assuredly numbered by the thousand.

The Irish Parliamentary Party, which at every stage of the Home Rule game has been outwitted and bulldozed by Carson and the Unionists, which had surrendered every point and yielded every advantage to the skilful campaign of the aristocratic Orange military clique in times of peace, behaved in equally as cowardly and treacherous a manner in the crisis of war.

There are few men in whom the blast of the bugles of war do not arouse the fighting instinct, do not excite to some chivalrous impulses if only for a moment. But the Irish Parliamentary Party must be reckoned amongst that few. In them the bugles of war only awakened the impulse to sell the bodies of their countrymen as cannon fodder in exchange for the gracious smiles of the rulers of England. In them the call of war sounded only as a call to emulate in prostitution. They heard the call of war – and set out to prove that the nationalists of Ireland were more slavish than the Orangemen of Ireland, would more readily kill and be killed at the bidding of an Empire that despised them both.

The Orangemen had at least the satisfaction that they were called upon to fight abroad in order to save an Empire they had been prepared to fight to retain unaltered at home; but the nationalists were called upon to fight abroad to save an Empire whose rulers in their most generous moments had refused to grant their country the essentials of freedom in nationhood.

Fighting abroad the Orangeman knows that he fights to preserve the power of the aristocratic rulers whom he followed at home; fighting abroad the nationalist soldier is fighting to maintain unimpaired the power of those who conspired to shoot him down at home when he asked for a small instalment of freedom.

The Orangeman says: “We will fight for the Empire abroad if its rulers will promise not to force us to submit to Home Rule.” And the rulers say heartily: “It is unthinkable that we should coerce Ulster for any such purpose.”

The Irish Parliamentary Party and its press said: “We will prove ourselves fit to be in the British Empire by fighting for it, in the hopes that after the war is over we will get Home Rule.” And the rulers of the British Empire say: “Well, you know what we have promised Carson, but send out the Irish rabble to fight for us, and we will, ahem, consider your application after the war.” Whereat, all the Parliamentary leaders and their press call the world to witness that they have won a wonderful victory!

James Fintan Lalor spoke and conceived of Ireland as a “discrowned queen, taking back her own with an armed hand”. Our Parliamentarians treat Ireland, their country, as an old prostitute selling her soul for the promise of favours to come, and in the spirit of that conception of their country they are conducting their political campaign.

That they should be able to do so with even the partial success that for a while attended their apostasy was possible only because so few in Ireland really understood the answer to the question that stands at the head of this article.

What is a free nation? A free nation is one which possesses absolute control over all its own internal resources and powers, and which has no restriction upon its intercourse with all other nations similarly circumstanced except the restrictions placed upon it by nature. Is that the case of Ireland? If the Home Rule Bill were in operation would that be the case of Ireland? To both questions the answer is: no, most emphatically, NO!

A free nation must have complete control over its own harbours, to open them or close them at will, or shut out any commodity, or allow it to enter in, just as it seemed best to suit the well-being of its own people, and in obedience to their wishes, and entirely free of the interference of any other nation, and in complete disregard of the wishes of any other nation. Short of that power no nation possesses the first essentials of freedom.

Does Ireland possess such control? No. Will the Home Rule Bill give such control over Irish harbours in Ireland? It will not. Ireland must open its harbours when it suits the interests of another nation, England, and must shut its harbours when it suits the interests of another nation, England; and the Home Rule Bill pledges Ireland to accept this loss of national control for ever.

How would you like to live in a house if the keys of all the doors of that house were in the pockets of a rival of yours who had often robbed you in the past? Would you be satisfied if he told you that he and you were going to be friends for ever more, but insisted upon you signing an agreement to leave him control of all your doors, and custody of all your keys? This is the condition of Ireland today, and will be the condition of Ireland under Redmond and Devlin’s precious Home Rule Bill.

That is worth dying for in Flanders, the Balkans, Egypt or India, is it not?

A free nation must have full power to nurse industries to health, either by government encouragement or by government prohibition of the sale of goods of foreign rivals. It may be foolish to do either, but a nation is not free unless it has that power, as all free nations in the world have today. Ireland has no such power, will have no such power under Home Rule. The nourishing of industries in Ireland hurts capitalists in England, therefore this power is expressly withheld from Ireland.

A free nation must have full power to alter, amend, or abolish or modify the laws under which the property of its citizens is held in obedience to the demand of its own citizens for any such alteration, amendment, abolition, or modification. Every free nation has that power; Ireland does not have it, and is not allowed it by the Home Rule Bill.

It is recognized today that it is upon the wise treatment of economic power and resources, and upon the wise ordering of social activities that the future of nations depends. That nation will be the richest and happiest which has the foresight to marshal the most carefully its natural resources to national ends. But Ireland is denied this power, and will be denied it under Home Rule. Ireland’s rich natural resources, and the kindly genius of its children, are not to be allowed to combine for the satisfaction of Irish wants, save in so far as their combination can operate on lines approved of by the rulers of England.

Her postal service, her telegraphs, her wireless, her customs and excise, her coinage, her fighting forces, her relations with other nations, her merchant commerce, her property relations, her national activities, her legislative sovereignty – all the things that are essential to a nation’s freedom are denied to Ireland now, and are denied to her under the provisions of the Home Rule Bill. And Irish soldiers in the English Army are fighting in Flanders to win for Belgium, we are told, all those things which the British Empire, now as in the past, denies to Ireland.

There is not a Belgian patriot who would not prefer to see his country devastated by war a hundred times rather than accept as a settlement for Belgium what Redmond and Devlin have accepted for Ireland. Have we Irish been fashioned in meaner clay than the Belgians?

There is not a pacifist in England who would wish to end the war without Belgium being restored to full possession of all those national rights and powers which Ireland does not possess, and which the Home Rule Bill denies to her. But these same pacifists never mention Ireland when discussing or suggesting terms of settlement. Why should they? Belgium is fighting for her independence, but Irishmen are fighting for the Empire that denies Ireland every right that Belgians think worth fighting for.

And yet Belgium as a nation is, so to speak, but a creation of yesterday – an artificial product of the schemes of statesmen. Whereas, the frontiers of Ireland, the ineffaceable marks of the separate existence of Ireland, are as old as Europe itself, the handiwork of the Almighty, not of politicians. And as the marks of Ireland’s separate nationality were not made by politicians so they cannot be unmade by them.

As the separate individual is to the family, so the separate nation is to humanity. The perfect family is that which best draws out the inner powers of the individual, the most perfect world is that in which the separate existence of nations is held most sacred. There can be no perfect Europe in which Ireland is denied even the least of its national rights; there can be no worthy Ireland whose children brook tamely such denial. If such denial has been accepted by soulless slaves of politicians then it must be repudiated by Irish men and women whose souls are still their own.

The peaceful progress of the future requires the possession by Ireland of all the national rights now denied to her. Only in such possession can the workers of Ireland see stability and security for the fruits of their toil and organization. A destiny not of our fashioning has chosen this generation as the one called upon for the supreme act of self-sacrifice – to die if need be that our race might live in freedom.

Are we worthy of the choice? Only by our response to the call can that question be answered.

Josef Kiermayer was born on 21 December 1897 in Erding (Bavaria). He served apprenticeship as saddler. From 8 September 1915 until 12 February 1916 he was soldier in the Bayerisches Infanterie-Leibregiment, from 13 February 1916 until the end of WW1 he served as sergeant in the Bayerisches Infanterie-Regiment 116. From 27 November 1919 he worked as policeman. On 30 January 1938 he became member of the Reichssicherheitsdienst in which he served as SS-Untersturmführer and Kriminalrat.

Kiermayer was promoted SS-Hauptsturmführer on 30 January 1943, and SS-Sturmbannführer on 21 June 1944. Finally Kiermayer became chief of Himmler's escort command, his personal aide and secretary, and accompanied him during his last days. Kiermayer was probably captured in Bremervörde on 21 or 22 May 1945, together with other members of Himmler's flight group.

In Ypres all wartime living quarters tended to be underground to get away from the regular German shelling and the ramparts, with their thick walls, were an obvious spot in which to dig a shelter. One wit produced the following advert which appeared in the soldiers’ newspaper, The Wipers Times on 12 February 1916

Under Entirely
New
Management

Hotel
Des Ramparts

No Expense Has been
Spared By The New
Management In The
Re–Decorating And
Re–Fitting of This
First–Class Hotel

The 55th Battalion was raised in Egypt on 12 February 1916 as part of the “doubling” of the AIF. Half of its recruits were Gallipoli veterans from the 3rd Battalion, and the other half, fresh reinforcements from Australia. Reflecting the composition of the 3rd, the 55th was predominantly composed of men from New South Wales. The battalion became part of the 14th Brigade of the 5th Australian Division.

URMIA: NARRATIVE OF DR. JACOB SARGIS, RECORDED IN A DESPATCH, DATED PETROGRAD, 12th FEBRUARY, 1916,
FROM THE CORRESPONDENT AT PETROGRAD OF THE AMERICAN "ASSOCIATED PRESS."

Dr. Jacob Sargis, an American Methodist medical missionary, who has arrived in Petrograd after narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Turks and Kurds in Urmia, Persian Armenia, asserts that among the outrages committed against the Christian refugees was the burning to death of an American doctor named Simon, or Shimmun, as he was known there. His identity was not further established, but the story of the outrage, as told by Dr. Sargis, was as follows:

"Dr. Shimmun was in the village of Supurghan when the Turks attacked that place. He was among those who took refuge on a mountain near the lake. He was captured and told that since he had been a good doctor and had helped the wounded, they would not kill him, but that he must accept the Mohammedan faith. He refused, as almost all Christians did. They poured oil on him, and, before applying the torch, they gave him another chance to forsake his religion. Again he refused, and they set his clothes afire. While he was running in agony from the flames, the Turks shot him several times. After he fell to the ground unconscious, they hacked his head off. Mr. Allen, an American missionary, who went from village to village burying the victims of this butchery, found the body of Shimmun half eaten by dogs.

"The Catholic Mission there took 150 Christians of all sects, and kept them in a small room and tried to save them; but at least 49 of them, among them one Bishop Dinkha, of the Episcopal Mission, were bound together one night, taken to Gagin mountain and there shot down."

Mr. Sargis was born in Persia, but went to America in 1893, and was educated there by the assistance of Dr. W. F. Oldham, former Bishop of India. He is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan and Ohio Medical University, and was for a time resident physician of the Protestant hospital at Columbus, Ohio.

Dr. Sargis was doing relief work in Urmia on the 1st January last year when the Russian army retired from that city, followed by 14,000 refugees from Urmia and a hundred surrounding villages. The hardships and sufferings endured by those refugees were described in Associated Press despatches. There were still left in Urmia and the villages 45,000 persons, chiefly Armenian refugees, when the Turks and Kurds entered. The latter at once began the work of exterminating the Christian population. In one town alone, Gulpashan, in one right, according, to Dr. Sargis, 79 men and boys were tied hand to hand, taken to a hill outside the village and shot. Their wives and daughters were distributed among the Turks, Kurds and Persian Mohammedans.

Dr. Sargis' story continues :

"On the second day after the Turkish officers came, they had a good many wounded and sick. As soon as they heard that I was an able physician, they took me, gave me a bodyguard, and put me in charge of Urmia Hospital. That was how I came to learn most of their secrets ; I helped their wounded and sick. One day there were sixty men brought from Bashkala, all well-to-do citizens, some of them noted men of that place. They were used as beasts of burden and forced to carry rolls of barbed wire into Urmia. The next day they were all taken to .the Castle of Ismayil (48) and every one was shot or hacked to death.

"About that time Nuri, the governor of Gawar, told me that he had received word from the Turkish commander to kill all the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army. He said that, for my sake, he would not do it, but that somebody else would. Twenty-nine were killed about fifteen miles from Urmia, at Karmad. We had eight of them in the city, fine fellows, some of them educated in Beirout. They had been disarmed, and one night they took them to the suburbs and shot them. But one of them, named Aslam(49), escaped. He dropped with the others , but was not hit. After the butchers left, he made his way to the Presbyterian mission college. I was notified and asked to take care of him. I kept him until the Russian army came. He joined, and is now fighting with them.

"In the First Turkish corps, commanded by Halil Bey, there were about 400 Armenians. One of them, Gulbenkian, a graduate of Beirout, told me that they were all doomed to be butchered. When they appointed me head physician of the hospital, they gave me plenty of helpers, including seven Christian nurses, six Arabs and one Greek. Gulbenkian told me that if I did not help them they would be killed. An Arab doctor, Bahadin Effendi, was appointed to work under my direction. My Greek nurse warned me that Bahadin had already killed more than fifty Armenian Christians, and cautioned me to watch him. One night about ten o'clock, Bahadin sent for me, saying that he was sick. Fortunately for me, the Greek and two Armenian nurses went with me. When I reached the hospital, I found that Bahadin was not sick at all. He said to me: 'What business have you to disturb me at this time of the night ? Your coming shows that you have some designs upon my life.' I told him that it was a mistake, that I had been told he was sick, and went away. At the bottom of the stairs I was overtaken by an officer, who said that the doctor had not done with me. I protested, but was ordered to go back. So I put my trust in the Lord and went.

"The doctor greeted me with the question. 'Who gave you permission to leave the room ? ' and continued: 'You are a prisoner, and you will never see the light of to-morrow's sun.' I told him that I was an American citizen. and that I was helping the wounded for the sake of humanity. He cut me off by saying: 'This is wartime. The top of your cap is green. That means that you are a descendant of the prophet, and it will give me pleasure to destroy your life to-night. I must think how I shall kill you. I could throw you out of the window, but that would be too quick. I could shoot you, but that also is too good for you. I shall have to use my sword. You sit down there in that corner, and these Turkish nurses will sing your funeral before I begin to cut you up.'

"The Turks began to sing a droning chant and I had no choice but to sit and listen. My bodyguard, the Greek nurse Theodore and two Armenian soldiers, the latter my servants, stood outside the door, and when they heard the chanting they thought it was all over with me. The Greek, who was a shrewd fellow, told my bodyguard to enter, and, if he saw me, to say that the patients wanted to see the doctor. All of a sudden I saw him enter with a lantern. He saluted the effendi and said: 'The patients want the doctor.' I didn't give Bahadin a chance to say a word. I was up and out and down in the street in about two seconds. When I got to the outpost they yelled from the window to stop me, but they were too late. My bodyguard and the Armenians and the Greek followed close behind me, and I got away. I reached home at midnight. My wife and children thought I was already dead."

Dr. Sargis turned the tables on the Arab doctor by alleging that he was insane, and having him put under guard and on a milk diet, notwithstanding that he was a doctor in Halil Bey's army.

"Soon after the Russians left Urmia a German machinist, Neumann, who came in with the Turks, announced himself as German Consul. By his orders a Christian of the name of Moushi was hanged. Neumann had promised me to release Moushi, but overnight he sold him to the Turks for Ł50. An Englishman named Jonathan George, well known in Tabriz, a relative of my wife, was whipped on Neumann's orders. In the village of Karadjalu a young Christian with a wife and two children was killed by a Mohammedan. The murderer took the wife and children, promising to protect them; but while crossing a bridge he threw the children into the river. At Ardishai 75 women and girls ran into the sea(50) to escape the Turks. They refused to trust promises of safety if they came out, and were all shot as they stood in the water. Eight thousand five hundred died in the vicinity of Urmia in five months; 1, 500 were killed, and the rest died of cold and hunger.

"During the days of the Turkish occupation it was no unusual sight to see an old woman carrying the body of her daughter or son to a place of burial, digging the grave herself or with the aid of other women."

Here I am, back in Wejh again, sitting in our funny house trying to write or think or work. I'm afraid there are too many interruptions for much success. Newcombe is here, and I hope things are going well. I got a letter from Arnie the other day pleading for more news of what the Sherifian forces are doing. Well you know, it is not my fault. They do a great deal, but some people - not themselves - seem to wish to keep the progress of the campaign a secret. As a matter of fact progress is difficult. The Arabs of the Hejaz are all for the Sherif, some keenly enough to volunteer, others less keen, but all well-wishers. Only, they are tribesmen, and as such are rebellious by instinct. They hate the Turks, but they don’t want to obey anyone’s orders, and in consequence they turn out only as a mob of snipers or guerilla-fighters. They are wonderfully active, quite intelligent, and do what they do do fairly well. They are however not fit to meet disciplined troops in the open, and it will be a long time before they are.

These details will give you a fair idea of the sort of campaign it is. There is a bunch of about 12,000 Turks in Medina and the neighbourhood, clinging to certain important water-supplies and roads South and West of Medina, and surrounded, on all sides except the Railway, by Arabs. The Turks are also holding the Hejaz Railway, which we now threaten from Tebuk downwards, but not as yet in any force. The Arabs proved incapable of taking Medina, held by its present garrison, and the Medina garrison proved unable to advance through the Arabs against Mecca. So now we have shifted part of our forces North to this place, and the struggle for the Railway will probably be the feature of this second phase of the Hejaz Campaign.

The Arab Movement is a curious thing. It is really very small and weak in its beginning, and anybody who had command of the sea could put an end to it in three or four days. It has however capacity for expansion - in the same degree - over a very wide area. It is as though you imagine a nation or agitation that may be very wide, but never very deep, since all the Arab countries are agricultural or pastoral, and all poor today, as a result of Turkish efforts in the past.

On the other hand the Arab Movement is shallow, not because the Arabs do not care, but because they are few - and in their smallness of number (which is imposed by their poverty of country) lies a good deal of their strength, for they are perhaps the most elusive enemy an army ever had, and inhabit one of the most trying countries in the world for civilised warfare. So that on the whole you may write me down a reasonable optimist. I hope that the show may go as we wish, and that the Turkish flag may disappear from Arabia. It is indiscreet only to ask what Arabia is. It has an East and a West and a South border - but where or what it is on the top no man knoweth. I fancy myself it is up to the Arabs to find out! Talk about Palestine or Syria or Mesopotamia is not opportune, when these three countries - with every chance - have made no effort towards freedom for themselves.

I wonder what the censor will make of this letter? It may contain news for him, but I'm afraid precious little to the enemy! However you never know what they will do, and there is a "Hush" policy over the Red Sea and Arabia which causes a good deal of amusement to the Arabs - and to us who are down here.

I hope to be able to send you some photographs of the Sherif and of Feisul and the rest of us shortly. Please wait in peace till then. Incidentally I’m to have no post towards you now for about ten days. Patience!

Captain Frederick Charles Booth VC, DCM (6 March 1890 – 14 September 1960) was a Rhodesian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

[edit] DetailsBooth was born in Holloway, North London, and educated at Cheltenham College. He served in the British South Africa Police in Southern Rhodesia from 1912 to 1917 and his regimental number was 1630. He was 26 years old, and a sergeant in the British South Africa Police attached to the Rhodesian Native Infantry during the First World War, when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.

On 12 February 1917 in Johannes Bruck, German East Africa (now Tanzania), during an attack in thick scrub on an enemy position, Sergeant Booth went forward alone to rescue an injured man. He then rallied the poorly organised native troops and brought them to the firing line. On many previous occasions this NCO had set a splendid example of pluck, and endurance.

In 1918 he was commissioned into the Middlesex Regiment and in 1939 served with the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps. Booth died on 14 September 1960 in Brighton, Sussex, England. He is buried at Bear Road Cemetery, Brighton, in the Red Cross Plot.

By the end of March the tunnelling works, the largest ever undertaken by the British Army, were complete. On the eve of the Battle of Arras the caves and quarries under the town contained more than 24,000 soldiers, as much as the civilian population of the town prior to the war. The network of tunnels was divided into two main sections. The first, situated under the Cambrai Road, was the domain of the Scots of the 9th infantry division, who baptized their galleries with familiar names such as Carlisle and Glasgow, and the English of the 35th division, who likewise named galleries after their home towns of Manchester, Liverpool and Chester. The network of tunnels under the Ronville district of the town was, from 12 February 1917, the exclusive territory of the New Zealanders who named their galleries after home towns such as Wellington. The total length of the tunnels amounted to nineteen kilometres.

The soldiers had to spend prolonged periods in the tunnels and so the latter were equipped with kitchens, water supplies from the mains or wells, and electric lighting throughout. Latrines for officers and highly-ranked persons were installed in every room. Although not quite coming up to the standards usually required by the strict health policies of the British Army for their temporary camps, the tunnels under Arras did provide a high degree of safety compared to the trenches at a comparable distance from the front and this was of some comfort to the men as they waited to go into battle.

On February 12, 1912, Hsian-T'ung, the last emperor of China, is forced to abdicate following Sun Yat-sen's republican revolution. A provisional government was established in his place, ending 267 years of Manchu rule in China and 2,000 years of imperial rule. The former emperor, only six years old, was allowed to keep up his residence in Beijing's Forbidden City, and he took the name of Henry Pu Yi.

Pu Yi was enthroned as emperor in 1908 after his uncle, the Kuang-hsu emperor, died. He reigned under a regency and underwent training to prepare him for his coming rule. However, in October 1911, his dynasty fell to Sun Yat-sen's revolution, and four months later he abdicated. The new Chinese government granted him a large government pension and permitted him to live in the imperial palace until 1924, when he was forced into exile.

After 1925, he lived in Japanese-occupied Tianjin, and in 1932 Japan created the puppet state of Manchukuo in Manchuria under his rule. In 1934, Henry Pu Yi was enthroned as K'ang Te, emperor of Manchukuo. Despite guerrilla resistance against his puppet regime, he held the emperor's title until 1945, when he was captured by Soviet troops.

In 1946, Pu Yi testified before the Tokyo war crimes tribunal that he had been an unwilling tool of the Japanese and not, as they claimed, an instrument of Manchurian self-determination. Manchuria and the Rehe province were returned to China, and in 1950 Pu Yi was handed over to the Chinese communists. He was imprisoned at Shenyang until 1959, when Chinese leader Mao Zedong granted him amnesty. After his release, he worked in a mechanical repair shop in Peking.

Meanwhile, on the 12th of February, 1918, the Turks began recapturing all the territories they had previously lost to the Russians and their Armenian collaborators, simultaneously massacring any remnants of the Armenian population in Eastern Turkey. In the vacuum that remained as a result of the Bolshevik coup, the leading political parties of south Caucasus started seeking independence of the disintegrating Russian empire in a desperate attempt to prevent anarchy and protect the area from the menace of Turkey.

The British artist Harold John Wilde Gilman (11 February 1876 – 12 February 1919) was a founder-member of the Camden Town Group. He died in the influenza epidemic of 1918–19.

(...) Though born in Rode, Somerset, Gilman spent his early years at Snargate Rectory, in the Romney Marshes in Kent, where his father was the Rector. Developing an interest in art during a childhood convalescence period, he began his artistic training after a non-collegiate year at Oxford University (again cut short by ill health) and time working as a tutor to an English family living in Odessa. Studying at the Hastings School of Art (1896) and then the Slade School of Fine Art (1897–1901), he then spent over a year studying the Spanish masters (Velázquez as well as Whistler were major early influences) and meeting and marrying the American painter Grace Cornelia Canedy. Moving back to London, where they settled (apart from an abortive trip to visit her family in Chicago, in which Gilman ducked pressure to join the Canedy family business), they had two daughters (one in London, one in Chicago).

Meeting Walter Sickert in 1907, Gilman became a founder member of both the Fitzroy Street Group (in 1907) and the Camden Town Group (in 1911). In the meantime he joined the Allied Artists' Association, moved to Letchworth, and began to show influence from work of Vuillard as well as Sickert. He soon outpaced Sickert's understanding of post-Impressionism and moved out from under his shadow, however, using ever stronger colour and identifying with Charles Ginner as a 'Neo-Realist' (exhibiting with Ginner under that label in 1914).

Canal Bridge, Flekkefjord, c. 1913Gilman visited Scandinavia in 1912 and 1913, and may have travelled with the artist William Ratcliffe, who had relations there. Gilman made studies of the environment, and painted Canal Bridge, Flekkefjord, an accurate depiction, whose subject is likely to have been inspired by Vincent van Gogh's depiction of a similar bridge in Provence. Gilman had rejected Van Gogh's work when he first encountered it, but later became a strong admirer and, according to Wyndham Lewis, keeping postcards of Van Gogh's work on his wall and sometimes hanging one of his own works next to them, if he was especially satisfied with it.

At that time he also joined Robert Bevan's short-lived Cumberland Market Group with Ginner and John Nash. Remarrying in 1917, in 1918 he was commissioned to travel to Nova Scotia by the Canadian War Records. He died in London on 12 February 1919 of the Spanish flu.

1919, February 12: Karl Radak, a member of the German Bolshevik delegation is arrested in the Bolshevik propaganda office in Berlin. Police discover an outline plan for a general Communist offensive to take place in the spring. According to this plan, The Red Army was to march through Poland into Germany to join up with a simultaneous German Communist insurrection.

It was announced in the House of Commons on 12 February 1919 that a Department of Civil Aviation
would be formed under the Minister for Air; and by the end of the month, the Air Navigation Act had
extended the scope of the Air Council to cover all matters concerned with air navigation. The
conditions under which civil aviation might be carried out were set out in the Air Navigation
Regulations of 1919, which were issued on 30 April. Thus, 'commercial civil aviation' in the UK may be
deemed to have started on 1 May 1919.

Caption: “This scene by the English artist Hodgskin appeared in the 12 February 1916 issue of the ‘Graphic.’ It shows how the English steamer ‘King David’ left the crew of the airship L 19 without assistance. The editors added: ‘One may assume that each of these “baby killers” received the fate he deserved.’ The torpedoing of the ‘Athenia,’ the pirate attack on the ‘Altmark,’ the bombing of open cities and countless other crimes prove that the English have not changed over the centuries.”

Waiting for the TommiesPublished Date: 01 July 2006, by GEORGE KEREVAN

(...) Much of what the Germans learned was from deserters, many of whom were disillusioned, over-romantic volunteers rather than dutiful conscripts. These deserters were despised by the Germans, and so helped to reinforce their negative view of British fighting prowess. One such deserter came from the Cameron Highlanders. He was an Englishman who had joined the Cameronians for adventure but decided he didn't like the Scots after all. He convinced the Germans that the kilt was a useless battledress in which the Highlanders would never be able to fight.

One German report on 35 British soldiers captured at Ypres on 12 February 1916 sums up the received Prussian wisdom: "crooked legs, rickety, alcoholic, degenerate, ill-bred, and poor to the last degree". Another intelligence report referred to the "poor little men of a diseased civilisation". (...)

Mr. HUME-WILLIAMS asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it has yet been possible to arrange for any and what person to carry on the work hitherto so kindly and admirably performed by the American Ambassador in Germany of visiting and reporting on the conditions of British prisoners of war interned in German camps?

Mr. JAMES HOPE (Lord of the Treasury) The Netherland Government have kindly consented to assume charge of British interests in Germany, and we have no doubt that, in due course, arrangments will be made for officials of the Netherland Legation at Berlin to visit the camps in Germany where British prisoners of war are interned and to report on the conditions which prevail.

Sir CHARLES HENRY Can my hon. Friend say if the arrangements made with the Dutch representatives as regards British prisoners of war will apply also to the British civilian prisoners?

Mr. HOPE Yes, I think so, certainly.

Mr. HUME-WILLIAMS asked the Seeretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any visits have yet been paid by a representative of a neutral Power to the camps in Turkey where British prisoners of war are interned; whether any reports have been received as to the condition of such camps and the necessities of the prisoners there interned; if not, what steps are being taken to induce Turkey to allow the camps to be visited; and, in the event of the American Ambassador leaving Constantinople, who will be requested to try and obtain leave to visit the camps in question?

Mr. HOPE His Majesty's Government have repeatedly made the strongest possible representations to the Turkish Government with a view to obtaining permission for representatives of the United States Embassy to visit the camps where British prisoners of war are interned. Their efforts have until now been unsuccessful, but they are being and will be continued. In the meantime certain of the camps have been visited by delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose report has not yet been received. The information which has reached His Majesty's Government from divers sources is to the effect that the conditions under which the officer prisoners of war are interned are tolerable, but that the situation of the prisoners of other ranks is, in general, deplorable. In regard to the last part of the question, I can only say at present that the matter is receiving attention.

Mr. HUME-WILLIAMS asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state what is the present state of the negotiations with Germany with reference to the mutual repatriation of prisoners interned in Switzerland; whether there is any hope that badly wounded prisoners would be exchanged; and, if so, when they may be expected to arrive home?

Mr. HOPE The German Government have not yet definitely accepted our proposal for the repatriation from Switzerland of prisoners of war when disabilities have developed since their transfer to Switzerland.

Mr. EDMUND HARVEY asked the hon. Member for Sheffield (Central Division), whether he can state the present position of British prisoners of war in Germany and elsewhere as regards the supply of parcels; and whether any modifications have recently been made in the arrangements for their dispatch?

Mr. HOPE This question has been further considered by the military authorities, but they have not been able to see their way to make any relaxation as to the weight and contents of parcels allowed to be sent to British prisoners of war.